Idi Amin Dada was a Ugandan military officer and politician who rose to power in a military coup in 1971. He was born in 1925 in the rural town of Koboko, in what was then British-controlled Uganda.
He ruled Uganda for eight years, during which time he earned the nickname "The Butcher of Uganda" for his brutality.
According to Amnesty INTL, Amin was responsible for the death of 500,000 people during his rule. He engaged in ethnic purging of the Acholi and Lango people throughout Uganda and in his own army, as he was constantly paranoid about being overthrown.
After the United Kingdom shuttered its embassy in 1977 because of Amin's oppression, the dictator declared that he had single-handedly defeated the British Empire. He later declared himself, "His Excellency, President for Life, Field Marshal Al Hadji Doctor Idi Amin Dada, VC, DSO, MC, Lord of All the Beasts of the Earth and Fishes of the Seas and Conqueror of the British Empire in Africa in General and Uganda in Particular.
Amin's rule came to an end in 1979, after a coalition of Ugandan exiles and Tanzanian forces invaded Uganda and overthrew him…. Amin fled to Libya, then Saudi Arabia, where he lived in exile until his death in 2003.
Throughout his life, Amin was a controversial and divisive figure, with some regarding him as a hero for standing up to Western imperialism, while others saw him as a brutal dictator who brought untold suffering to his people.